PADI Advanced Open Water Diver: Ready to experience five more adventurous ways to dive. Let's get you into the water and review your Open Water Diving skills. Your required dives for the PADI Advanced Open Water rating are the core Deep Dive and a Navigation Dive. Then you have a choice of trying Night Diving, Multi-Level Diving, Wreck Diving (our specialty in Coron), Boat Diving, an Underwater Naturalist Dive, or Underwater Photography. For PADI Advanced Open Water you choose any three elective dives. The PADI Advanced Open water Diver course will make you aware of your diving environment.

PADI Nitrox Diver: To extend your bottom time on single level dives, to shorten surface intervals between dives, to have more allowable bottom time on repetitive dives, become a PADI or TDI Diver.

PADI Rescue Diver: will make you aware of the other divers around you. Learn to evaluate and assess their abilities and use your skills to make sure everyone has a safe dive. Learn diver rescue skills and practice them in 12 Open Water Exercises. If you want to be a MUCH BETTER DIVER and a valuable DIVE BUDDY then PADI Rescue Diver is a must.

Frequently asked Questions about PADI Divemaster Training (a lot of information about traveling to Coron, making a long-term stay, and paying for your course)

When I become a PADI Divemaster what can I do?

ANSWER: The two main roles of a PADI Divemaster are guiding licensed divers and managing diving operations, and functioning as an Instructional Assistant.

I can figure out "guiding licensed divers" because I've been diving with Divemasters who were in charge of guiding the group. Can you explain the difference between guiding licensed divers and being an instructional assistant?

ANSWER: A PADI Divemaster can assist a PADI Instructor while the instructor is teaching an Open Water Diver course. In this role the Divemaster is an Instructional Assistant. Divemasters can supervise students while they assemble equipment, demonstrate skills during confined water sessions, accompany students at the surface to and from deep water, guide two students on the experience part of training dives 2, 3, and 4, and help students who have problems by watching them as they practice skills and providing additional demonstrations of the skill. The DM can also watch the other students at the bottom or at the surface while the instructor does skills with one student. The instructor has to teach and to verify that the student can perform the skill in confined water and on the training dives.

Do you only work with Open Water Students?

ANSWER: A PADI Divemaster can guide Advanced Open Water students on their dives except for the deep dive, elective wreck dive and the night dive where the instructor must be in the water. The Divemaster can be a dive buddy for a lot of the PADI Specialty Diver courses.

Do you always get to dive when you work with licensed divers?

ANSWER: A PADI Divemaster can guide licensed divers in the water if there is a small group. If there is a large group he may supervise from on the boat, making sure that all goes well and being ready to respond if there is a problem. He could assist divers who haven't assembled their equipment for a while, give the dive briefing and in general, direct and manage the operation.

If I'm going to work with students what are they like?

ANSWER: Our students are multi-national and multi-lingual. Whoever walks through the door at an international diving destination. You have no choice for your Divemaster training. You need good people skills to be a PADI Divemaster and later to be a PADI Instructor. You have to learn all the possible roles that a Divemaster could be required to perform. It's all fun.

Do I get to dive as much as I want during the Divemaster course?

ANSWER: The course DOES NOT include unlimited diving. There are requirements listed below that must be met. You can't do the work if you are out with fun divers all of the time. You have to have logged at least 20 dives to start the course and you have to have 60 dives to submit a Divemaster application to PADI. The coursework would include about 30 events that could be logged as dives.

What is the course like if it's more than just diving?

ANSWER: There is a new curriculum for PADI Divemaster. PADI revised THE Divemaster training program in January 1999. If you ask anyone about Divemaster BE SURE that they are talking about the NEW 1999 PROGRAM. It has changed much from before to give a variety of educational and leadership experiences to the Divemaster Candidate.

1. There are now 12 topics to be covered by lecture. This includes "The Business of Diving."

2. You will do a 400 meter swim, a 15 minute tread water exercise, an 800 meter mask, fins, snorkel swim, and a 100 meter inert diver tow for a point score.

3. You will do another Diver Rescue and be assessed on a complete pass-fail standard. Get it wrong and do it over until it is completely right. You have to get the rescue perfect before you are even allowed to work with students in training.

4. You must demonstrate ALL of the 18 basic PADI Open Water Diver diving skills to a quality that would be appropriate for an instructor to use your demonstration to teach students. You can't just do a skill, you must demonstrate slowly, calmly, obviously, HOW to do it. Think about it.

5. You must survey a dive site and create a map of the site that can be used for a dive briefing at the site.

6. Starting in shallow water you and a buddy must submerge and swim out to water too deep to stand up in while buddy breathing. In deep water you must swap equipment with your buddy. You must do this calmly, in a relaxed manner, without surfacing, WHILE BUDDY BREATHING. Your buddy will do what you tell him to do. You plan it and brief it to your buddy. As much as anything it tests your planning and communication skills.

7. You must develop an emergency assistance plan for response to a dive related accident at a remote site. You have to list everything to do and who to contact to treat the patient and transport him to Manila for recompression chamber treatment.

8. You must conduct a PADI Scuba Review, Discover Snorkeling program, or Discover Local Diving program under the supervision of a PADI Instructor.

9. You must participate in a PADI Open Water Diver confined water training session.

10. You must participate in any four other confined water training sessions from any other PADI course or program.

11. You must participate in one PADI Open Water training dive.

12. You must participate in one PADI Advanced Open Water, Rescue Diver, or PADI Specialty Diver course open water training session.

13. You must participate in three additional open water training sessions from any PADI course or program.

14. You must participate in at least one supervisory sutuation with licensed divers not in a formal course. ((Dive Guiding))

Do I also have to work in the dive shop?

ANSWER: You don't have any formal jobs to do but you will get involved and see how a dive shop operates. You will spend a lot of time in the dive shop.

How long does a PADI Divemaster course take.

ANSWER: There is no time limit. Three weeks would be about the minimum time to complete the requirements. Four weeks would be a good course.

What is the hardest part of the course?

ANSWER: The physics section seems to be the one that gives students the most trouble. Many questions are related to bouyancy, displacement, density and volume changes with changes in depth and pressure. I am an engineer and find this uncomplicated and easy to explain. The tests for Divemaster are repeated for the Instructor Examination. You learn all of your theory as a Divemaster candidate. After this, and up to the instructor's examination, there is no more theory. Learn it well now.

What can I do to prepare before I come to the dive shop?

ANSWER: You can buy and read the PADI Divemaster Manual, the PADI Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving, and you can use the "Workbook" with the Encyclopedia for home study.

What equipment do you provide for the Divemaster course?

ANSWER: We provide tanks and weights.

What should I bring with me?

ANSWER: Besides the academic materials I mentioned above you should have a complete set of diving equipment to include knife and compass. We supply tanks and weights.

If I don't have my own equipment can I rent it?

ANSWER: A complete set of diving equipment rents for $5 per day.

Do I need a wetsuit?

ANSWER: Yes. If you will be staying in relatively warm water like the Philippines a 3mm suit would be sufficient. You can buy a 3mm suit custom made to your body measurements for around $120 to $150 in Manila.

Do you have rooms for me to stay in?

ANSWER: We are a dive shop only. We don't have rooms. There are inexpensive rooms in the L&M Pe Sea Lodge about 15 meters from the dive shop. The absolute cheapest would be about $100 for a month. This would be a room without a private bathroom. There is a common bathroom in the lodging house as well as two nice bathrooms in the dive shop. Pictures of the style of rooms are in the Dive Right WebPages.

If I want to come to Coron cheaply by boat do I need to make a reservation?

ANSWER: You don't need a reservation for the Friday boat unless you want to travel in a cabin. If you tell us when you will arrive in Manila and when you will travel to Coron we will make your reservation.

Where can I stay in Manila until I take the boat?

ANSWER: Malate Pension has rooms for all prices and Joward's Pension across the street has rooms for $7 to $16 dollars a night. Both are in the Malate area of Manila on Adriadico Street near the Malate church. Pension Natividad is also an excellent choice for economy lodging. It is on Del Pilar Street one block away from Roxas Blvd and in the second block south of Pedro Gil Street. You can get there for $3 or $4 by taxi from the airport. Another $3 to $4 would get you to the North Harbor to take the boat to Coron.

How long does the boat ride take to get to Coron?

ANSWER: 14 hours on the Friday boat.

When I get off of the boat how do I get to the dive shop?

ANSWER: A motorcycle with sidecar is available and will take you and all your gear to the ANSWERet area for 20 Pesos/$0.50. Just tell him to take you to L&M Pe Lodge at the ANSWERet. You will see the signs for Dive Right.

How do I pay for the course?

ANSWER: You can pay for the course when you arrive. If you send money by bank transfer, too much is lost in bank charges. If possible bring in US 100 dollar bills and US 20 dollar bills and then change them in Manila for pesos before coming to Coron. Second best is US Dollar traveler's checks. Only US $s and Traveler's checks work well in the Philippines. The further you get from the Ermita and Malate areas in Manila the lower the exchange rates will be. They change other currencies for much less then for US. In Coron you can pay with a credit card but it will cost you an extra 6.5%.

If the course is four weeks do I need a visa?

ANSWER: If you have a visa when you arrive you can stay for 59 says. If you don't have a visa when you arrive you can stay for 21 days and get it extended to 59 days by the Swagman Travel office in Manila or in Coron. Visas are not a problem. The Philippine government wants you to come and spend your money.